One Year of Inside VT KnowledgeWorks

Membership in nuclear families peaked at only 45% of the US population way back in 1960. Single persons now make up half of the US households. By 2050 over half of Americans will be minorities. The daily hardcopy newspaper is living out its gray years as a product for aging boomers.

Web-based social networking is the dominant communication medium for X-geners, Y-geners, and Millennials. Google is putting complete, searchable libraries on the Internet (and paying royalties for doing so).

The US auto industry is flirting with death. Fewer than 3% of all US companies generate almost all of the new jobs. Even small towns are laying in fiber-optic broadband cables. The world climate is in shock. China will soon have more English speakers than any other country in the world, surpassing even India. And the US will inaugurate its first African-American President next January.

We don’t have it all figured out just yet; but it is certainly clear that every company’s concept of the world and its core business skills and practices have to adapt to the realities of the 21st century.

Web sites, so trendy only a few years ago, are fine for cataloging static information; but live content is now the way to be noticed. Blogs, e-newsletters, and chat groups are not challenging, troublesome frills. They are powerful business tools that must be mastered.

A bullet train to who-knows-where is stopped right now at our local station. It’s going to be a wild ride. Don’t get left on the platform. I’d miss you.

Can you imagine someone who works in a factory that processes metal not knowing how to use a blowtorch? How can you imagine yourself as a highly-paid knowledge worker and not know how to do these things… If you don't, it's not hard to find someone to teach you.